Snapdragon

Montblanc has revealed its newest smartwatch, the Summit 2, powered by Qualcomm's new Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset. Announced in San Francisco, CA today, the Summit 2 follows the original Summit luxury smartwatch, launched back in early 2017.

Qualcomm promised some big news in smartwatch chips, and the Snapdragon Wear 3100 is just that. Bringing a long-awaited update to the company's wearable-focused silicon, the new platform promises to be more powerful and more power-efficient, with a number of big names in smartwatches already signed on.

Lenovo has revealed a new Windows on Snapdragon notebook, the Lenovo Yoga C630, its first always-on, always-connected Yoga convertible and the first to use the Snapdragon 850. Revealed at IFA 2018 today, the 13.3-inch ultraportable promises the potential of more than 25 hours of battery life, more than enough to get you through a full day.

Qualcomm will shift to a new 7nm system-on-chip design for its next, 5G-capable flagship mobile platform, though the company isn't quite ready to spill the beans completely on what it has planned. The new SoC - which Qualcomm says it expects to be the first 5G-capable mobile platform for premium-tier smartphones and more - is currently sampling to device partners.

While the idea definitely had lots of appeal, Microsoft’s Windows 10 on ARM, specifically on Snapdragon, fell flat on its face during its first generation. It was largely attributed to performance problems which was, in turn, attributed to the not-so-recent Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 used in that first batch. Back in June, Qualcomm announced the Snapdragon 850 that would fix that mistake. Benchmark sightings, however, aren’t exactly encouraging.

Mid-range, or as Qualcomm would call them “high-end”, smartphones are killing it. While majority of media coverage is lavished on premium smartphones with premium prices and eccentric designs, devices on the middle tiers continue to offer better bang for buck value when it comes to balancing performance, battery life, and price. That’s why it’s no surprise that Qualcomm continues to saturate the market with chips on this range, like the newly announced Snapdragon 670, that is going to give OEMs a headache in trying picking out a chip for their next-gen phones.

It’s probably a bad time to launch a new smartwatch these next few weeks, unless you’re Samsung or Apple. That’s because any smartwatch you put into the market will be running on a mobile platform that is effectively two years old. Even older if you consider that the Snapdragon Wear 2100 is based on a modified Snapdragon 400 chipset. And in about 30 days, that wearable processor will be rendered obsolete now that Qualcomm itself is teasing when the long-overdue successor, tentatively known as the Snapdragon Wear 3100, will be unveiled.

Just recently Samsung released a short ad that mocked the iPhone X’s slower download speeds, at least compared to the Galaxy S9. That ad based its boast on Ookla’s recent “Speedtest Intelligence” report. Now that same report is being used by Qualcomm to also flaunt its latest Snapdragon 845 with its latest X20 LTE modem. But while it specifically mentions Intel LTE modems as the target of its campaign, it is also making a slight jab at its latest new enemy: Apple.

One of the cited reasons for the failure of Wear OS by Google (formerly Android Wear) smartwatches is that they are all running on a two-year old chipset. Considering the Snapdragon Wear 2100 is based on the Snapdragon 400, its technology goes way back to 2013. As promised, Qualcomm is delivering a much-needed and long-overdue update to its wearable platform. But funnily enough, it is marketing the Snapdragon Wear 2500 squarely at the kids’ wearable market, practically making a bet on that market instead of the grownups’ wearable industry.

There are a few trends in the smartphone market that are trickling down from the expensive, high-end flagships to the affordable mid-range ones. But while bezel-less screens, notched or not, are more dependent on component suppliers, features like AI and support for dual cameras require support in the mobile processor itself. That’s why Qualcomm is launching the new Snapdragon 632, 439, and 429 “mobile platforms” to help mid-tier devices catch up with their more expensive counterparts in features.

Qualcomm is gradually making its push into the PC processor market, namely with its latest Snapdragon 850, aimed at notebooks. That chip, however, is just a higher-clocked version of the Snapdragon 845, a processor originally designed for smartphones, which means the 850 still doesn't make the cut in keeping up with Intel's CPUs. The much rumored Snapdragon 1000, however, is expected to be a different story.

From Windows S to the new, somewhat disappointing first generation of always-on Windows 10 on ARM PCs, it is clear that Microsoft is worried. Its once unchallenged kingdom in the education and enterprise markets have been chipped away first by Apple and now by Google and its Chromebooks. The Windows maker is fighting back by trying to combine Windows 10 with hardware that makes mobile devices so useful: always-on connectivity and battery life. But even before Redmond can regain its foothold, it seems that Google will be fighting back with a Chromebook codenamed “Cheza”, powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845.